Deep dive on the Bimotal Elevate e-bike system

Bob Forgrave

The best, lightest way to electrify your regular bike.

At the Sea Otter Classic in Monterrey, we decided it would be a great idea for me to test out the climbing gears on our CHANGE Folding Adventure Bike. The challenge? Instead of renting a car, do a nearly one-hour climb from the airport hotel, every day, up what Google Maps called a “very steep hill.”

No kidding. I could beat the expected time, but only by two minutes. And the exertion added up.

By the third day, I was counting cadence, counting trees, and counting the e-bikes that breezed by me. I began to fantasize about a miraculous e-bike technology that would erase the steepest grades and then disappear into the background the rest of the time, so I could just enjoy biking as usual. Whatever gets you through the mental and physical challenges, right?

And then, a miracle happened.

On the third day, as I arrived at the show on time but all sweaty and needing to change my shirt, the CEO of Bimotal came up to our booth and asked if I’d like to electrify my full-size folding CHANGE bike with a powerful, lightweight electric motor that can be removed in seconds to turn my bike back into the same ride. In essence, this was the discreet little hill eraser that I had fantasized about, and all I needed to do was say Yes and pay for the unit. An obvious choice.

His team installed it during the show. My climb the next day took 24 minutes, cutting nearly half an hour off the commute, and I arrived fresh and happy. If that’s not a powerful use case for e-bikes, I don’t know what is.

In the time since then, we’ve done a deep dive with this drive system at Flatbike, gotten familiar with compatible brake sets, and figured out the best location for the battery and discreet routing for cabling and optimal folding, even 3D printing a mounting adapter for best location.

Now, it’s launch time…

We’ve got five drive systems that we can install on any of our three CHANGE full-size folding bike models: Folding Gravel Bike, Folding Adventure Bike, or Folding Off-Road Mountain Bike. Just go to any model and choose ELECTRIFICATION.

How Bimotal Elevate works

Sometimes, the best way to understand how something works is to see it in action.

 

Started by ex-Tesla technical leads, the core of Bimotal is this powerful, 3.3 lb removable drive unit. The size of a typical 250 watt motor, this one is three times as powerful, and applies power directly to teeth attached to a custom brake disc.

Because the already low-weight motor doesn’t rotate with the wheel like a typical rear-drive system, there isn’t the gyroscopic effect that plagues typical rear-drive bike handling. At 750 watts, it starts to deliver the level of performance seen in mid-drive motors, even without benefitting from the mechanical advantage of the derailleurs. And because the chain isn’t involved, you don’t need to modify your existing chain.

The battery pack is similarly impressive. Kind of blocky, it’s also just 3.4 lbs. Bimotal rates it as good for 10-20 miles of riding or 1,500 to 2,500 feet of climbing.

When you think about it, that’s a significant range for both numbers. Why? Because of how you use the system.

This is the handlebar of an electrified Folding Adventure bike. that little, yellow-accented lever is the only sign of e-bike capability. Think of it as your “trouble go away” lever.

Steep hill coming up that you want to go away? Push the lever.

Traffic light changed and you need a quick start? Inertia go away.

Crossing a busy street and you need to do it quickly? Slowness go away.

Riding with traffic on a busy street? Have an e-bike for a while.

Circling back to range… how often are you going to run into trouble? The answer varies for different riders at different times. We’ve personally used a Bimotal-electrified bike as our shop bike for round trips to the post office, and when we charged it after a month, that was because it had been a month of use, not because we needed to.

If range anxiety is a concern, you can even just have a spare battery–on your bike or someone else’s.

How it looks.

We don’t have all models built out yet, but this is how it looks on a CHANGE Folding Adventure Bike.

And here the bike is folded, a minute later, to go into a car trunk or long-haul trucker cab.

Having the motor and battery easily removable means that you can remove the 6.8 lbs of weight from your bike at any time, or bring them inside for safekeeping, or share them between two bikes.

 

What the experts say.

This isn’t a comprehensive list; for that, go to bimotal.com. But it shows the success Bimotal is having already for a young company.

 

• Time Magazine 200 best inventions of 2024: Bimotal Elevate: the 200 Best Inventions of 2024 | TIME

 

• Singletracks review: Singletracks Reviews Elevate — Bimotal Inc

• Gear Patrol most important gear for 2024: Gear Patrol Selects Elevate as #23 Most Important Outdoor Gear for 202 — Bimotal Inc

 

Two words about travel

“Lithium battery.”

If you’re familiar with air travel, you know that this combination is on the “do not fly” list. That means that even though your CHANGE full-size folding bike is a great travel companion in taxis, buses, elevators and trains, your battery is going to be an issue for air travel.

The answer is to mail it ahead to your destination. Just the 3.4 lb battery. Specifically, UPS ground. the rest of your bike can travel as normal, and you can even use it like normal until your battery arrives. Sure beats trying to ship an entire e-bike…

Portable adventure for the win!

Bob Forgrave

Bob Forgrave is president of Flatbike, an
ecommerce company offering full-size folding bikes
and kits to make any bike take up half the space.